336 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES

17. The order of fulfilment is different from the order in ver. 15, and introduces also the new purpose of ver. 16, which does not appear in ver. 15. The names "sun" and "moon" are not mentioned. They are simply "the greater light " and "the lesser light." 18. On this fourth day also the Divine benediction rests : " God saw that it was good" ; and " evening" and "morn­ ing" have with the creation of the sun a new significance. J. J. STEWART PEROWNE.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF CARDINAL NEWMAN. III. SoME remarks about N ewman that have appeared in the press have assumed that as Cardinal he took an active part in the general government of the . This is quite a mistake. His cardinalate was as nearly an honorary distinction as anything of the kind could be. Not having any diocese under his care, as most cardinals have, he should by rights have resided in Rome permanently, and there no doubt he would have had to take part in the administration of ecclesiastical affairs. But he was dis­ pensed from this ; and his being placed by courtesy on one or two of the Sacred Congregations-on that of ·relics, for example-was a purely nominal affair ; and the imposing looking envelopes with quaint seals, which on rare occasions reached the Oratory from Rome, seldom contained anything but formal announcements of changes in the Sacred College, or "the compliments of the season," and such like. He thought lightly of the advantage of" retreats," at any rate of long ones, and dissuaded people from making them. He could not exempt members of the community from such retreats, lasting a week or ten days, as authorized by OF CARDINAL NEWJ11AN. 337 the bishop in preparation for ordination, but he retained his opinion about them. The Oratory rule makes provision for a monthly single day's retreat, which members of the con­ gregation take, not collectively, but independently and alone, on any day they may select as convenient. It is a day of solitude and of exemption from the regular round of occu­ pation and duty. This very sensible form of retreat he of course approved and practised, and thought it sufficient by itself. That N ewman failed as a ruler of men I have already observed, nor will it be disputed by any one who knew him at all intimately. He was, by a special papal brief, superior of the Oratory for life-for more than forty years as it proved-and during that time no incon­ siderable number of men, mostly converts to Catholicism, offered themselves to him for whatever position he might select ; but he did not know how to use them, and they mostly passed on to serve elsewhere. Nor was it very different with those who did remain with him. In the Oratorian community at Birmingham there is a proportion of men of distinct and varied gifts; but the little they have done is almost proverbial ; and yet it has hardly been their own fault. For myself, during my three years' novitiate, I was occupied mainly with the simple community duties, and, on my own initiative, with the writing of a book, which the Cardinal was good enough to praise and to furnish with an important preface; but when my position warranted more activity in what is called pastoral work, I can recollect little else than hindrances placed in my way by him. On one occa.sion however I did earn his praise. I heroically resolved to learn to play the violoncello-a thing no one should be so foolish as to attempt when thirty, as I was-and I practised in retirement for some weeks. Eventually in the father's presence I struggled through an easy concerto; and when he discovered who it was that

VOL. IT. 22 338 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES was playing the bass part, he came up to me eagerly, and almost embraced me, exclaiming, "I am rejoiced to see this! " Personal considerations used to weigh with him, unduly I used to think from the Catholic point of view, when it was a question of condemning the ecclesiastical position of those whom he, like many other good Catholics, shrank from calling heretics. I recollect that in a note to the book which I wrote, I had criticised sharply the proceedings of a somewhat grotesque fraternity, now probably forgotten, called the " Order of Corporate Reunion." To my surprise he was determined not to let my criticisms appear ; and on my standing by them the contention grew so hot, that I felt bound to agree to some modifications, else I saw the book would not be published at all. He explained to me afterwards that one of the chief movers in the " order " was a friend and a connexion of his. This also, however, must be added, that, when I was away from the Oratory for a few days after this, it being the time of my ordination as priest, he wrote me the most affectionate letters I ever received from him, one of which I shall always especially prize on account of the expressions it contains ; though for the same reason I should perhaps be unwilling to make it public. This was in the autumn of 1879. Two years afterwards I again came into collision with him in regard to an enlargement of the public elementary schools, which indeed was necessary, though not on the scale on which I wished to have it done, as in the end it was. He was really vehement too in his opposition when, a little later, I was proposing that funds for the same schools should be raised in part by means of a bazaar. One knows that these things are objectionable, and are at best a necessary evil; but the violence of feeling aroused in him by this project was nothing short of painful. A ridiculous fuss is made by some of Newman's news- OF CARDIYAL NETV.MAX. 339 paper biographers of the absence of ostentation manifested in his wearing ordinarily as Cardinal a black cassock together with his scarlet stockings, biretta, and sash. One would suppose it was usual for cardinals to wear in private the scarlet cappa magna and to dine, like Scott's abbots, in cope and mitre. In point of fact, Newman wore habitually more. of the insignia of his rank than there was any need for him to have done. The scarlet zucchetto or skull-cap is all that is de rigueur ; and I think that the Jesuit Cardinal Franzelin never, even in Rome, wore anything more dis· tinctive than this. I do not doubt that Newman pos· sessed a due measure of the Christian virtue of humility, quite compatible with a decided belief in himself and an insistence on his dignity as a prince of the Church ; but one need not go the wrong way to prove it. Certainly there was never any posing, never any pomposity about him. His taking a kind of childlike pleasure in ecclesias• tical costume and in Church ceremonial is quite consistent with this ; and I must not be taken to imply that it was vanity, still less any vulgar ostentation, that made him apparently delight in wearing the imposing robes of a car· dinal when he assisted at high mass. Vulgarity is indeed the very last thing that one can associate with him. I remember once walking with N ewman (before he was Cardinal) to a suburban station near the Oratory, to take the train towards . We were talking about a pos­ sible revision of the Breviary; and he said, fully and frankly, that the compilers of the legends had evidently preferred what they took to be edification to historical truth. There is of course no doubt about this. The principle (if such it be) was admitted as long ago as the time of Eusebius; and in accordance with it every life of every saint has been written,-one might add every religious biography ; the official life of Newman himself will be no exception. But I remember that at the time the thought occurred to me, 340 PERSONAL REJ!INISOENOES

"This is only what poor Kingsley said." And now we have had printed Newman's letter to Sir William Cope on the occasion of Kingsley's death/ in which he practically admits that his indignation was all "put on." "It would not do to be tame," he says; "I wanted to gain a hear­ ing, and I did not see how else it could be done." It is a curious and even an amusing explanation. Some short time before Dr. Pusey died the Cardinal had been very urgent in asking people to pray for him. We concluded that he had reason to suppose that the doctor would wish to die a Catholic; but we were mistaken, for he anticipated nothing of the kind. I took him the news of his death, which he received without emotion, for it was expected. He merely said he should say mass for him, and wished the others to do the same. I represented the Cardinal at Dr. Pusey's funeral, somewhat informally, as I was among the mass of spectators in the aisle ; and I remember well the touching effect produced by the sing­ ing of Newman's hymn, "Lead, kindly Light." He was always very strong on the "good faith" or "invincible ignorance" of pious Protestants who died outside the Church, and one would almost have supposed that in his judgment they lost nothing on that account. I recollect that when Mr. C. F. Lowder, of St. Peter's, London Docks, died while on a holiday in the Tyrol, I said something about the pathos of such a man dying in a land where his ideal of sacramental life was realized all around him, while he himself was excluded from participation in it; but Newman seemed unwilling to admit there was anything more than sentiment in what I referred to. Of course I should agree with him now, but at the time it surprised me. Some pains have been taken to contradict the statement that Newman, some five-and-twenty years ago, contemplated founding a Catholic college at Oxford. It wa.s really a 1 In the Tirnes for Ang., 18th, 1890. OF CARDINAL NEIVMAN. 341 branch house of the Oratory that he had in view ; but to all intents and purposes it would have been a college, since it would have encouraged Catholic students to come to Oxford, and doubtless would have provided a residence for some of them. The prQject was nipped in the bud by the ultramontane or Dublin Review party, the "insolent and aggressive faction," as Newman afterwards styled them, including Manning, Ward, and the London Oratorians. Ostensibly the scheme was disapproved, lest Catholics should thereby be tempted to send their sons to a Protestant university; it is clear however that there was a personal element at work, since Propaga.nda, inspired from , actually approved the plan, but on condition that Newman did not reside in the Oxford house. It is needless to add how deeply wounded he was by this decision, and how the project was at once entirely abandoned. As a matter of fact, Scotch and Irish Catholics are free to go to Oxford; and though it was as near as may be prohibited for Eng­ land, there have always been a few who have gone, more or less on the sly. It may be worth noting that the cardinalate is not an order, like the episcopate, but a dignity. Newman was never consecrated a bishop, and his right to wear a mitre and use a crozier was thus purely honorary, corresponding to the right to wear mitres on certain festivals accorded to the canons of St. Mark's, Venice, and of a few other churches. He used these insignia, which are properly episcopal, rarely enough ; and though his magnificent head looked a perfect :picture when he wore the tall Roman mitre, there was more distinction in the long, flowing cappa rnagna with its ermine tippet, a most picturesque and dignified costume, failing only in being topped by the graceless scarlet biretta. To my thinking at the time Newman's use of the mitre and crozier, though authorized by the ceremonial of the Roman Curia, savoured some- 042 PERSONAL BEJIINISCENCES what of the unrealities of ritualism, as he had never been invested with them in any rite of consecration ; and the glaring falseness of the jewels with which the mitre was set gave a further point to my criticism. I fear it is not this mitre that has been buried with him. However, in his essay on Keble he has told us that the mitre and crozier \vere dreams of his childhood, which thus found realization ; and it is just as well that he was nevertheless spared the burden of anxieties which would have accom­ panied those ornaments had it been his lot to use them as a bishop. As I have mentioned the .Jesuits in connexion with the misgivings they may very naturally have felt about the establishment of , and as some of my readers may be disposed to regard them as the intriguing opponents of every good man and of every good work, and by consequence of Newman and all his undertakings, I may as well say that he told me himself that the Jesuits had always stood by him in all his troubles as a Catholic from first to last. His confessor in Rome, in 1846-47, was, I think, a Jesuit, and with sundry members of the society in England he retained most cordial relations ; and it was for Father Coleridge, S.J., and for the Month, then edited by him, that Newman wrote the "Dream of Gerontius," his long­ est and most exquisite poem, which, according to an assi­ duously propagated legend, he thought only fit for the waste-paper basket. The Jesuits now occupy at Oxford the position N ewman had designed for a new house of the Oratory, and doubtless they do as much to attract Catholic undergraduates to the university as ever he would have done. There was no pretence at ascetism about Newman, nor for that matter is asceticism in the popular sense contem­ plated in the Oratory rules. Neither poverty nor a poor diet, nor of course abstinence in the sense of our teetotal OF CARDINAL NETV.MAN. 343 friends, is expected of an Orator!an, but a sacrifice of a different kind. "A man's perfection," taught St. Philip N eri, " lies in the space of three lines " ; and so saying he placed his fingers on his forehead. It was mental asceticism, what the Italians bluntly call "the sacrifice of the intellect," that was demanded of Newman as an Oratorian priest, and he offered it with his whole heart and in perfectly good faith. He preached at the funeral of Henry Wilber­ force, at Woodchester Priory, and burst into sympathetic tears when he referred to him as one who had not shrunk from becoming "a fool for Christ's sake." It is touching, and I suppose that at one time or another most of us have thought that this might prove the highest form of self­ sacrifice; but with Newman the delusion (as, I fear, to be honest I must call it) was life-long. I should rather place his claims to sanctity in his patient, silent endurance when misunderstood and snubbed by the magnates of the Church; but this will hardly be taken into account at Rome. Critics of Newman-the latest of them being Dr. Fair­ bairn-who have contended that his line of thought tends ultimately to scepticism, must have quite forgotten that he never ceased to affirm that the existence of a personal God, and his own conversion and predestination to eternal life at a definite time in his boyhood, were facts as clear to him as his own existence. And when you are once fairly started with a 'll"ou

------~---- civilized world, I do not think his merits as a man of letters, with a genuine but little exercised poetic gift, and (I will add) as a fine old English gentleman, have ever been exaggerated by any one. If it be true that style makes the man, then certainly N ewman occupies a most distin­ guished position in the literary history of the century. I do not pretend to be competent to criticise his · work; but it will not be out of place to note how, in addition to his singular felicity in stating his case with clearness and persuasiveness, there was always a playful or else a pathetic undercurrent in what he wrote; while his bold­ ness in employing what is called "plain Anglo-Saxon," or, in other words, the phrases of familiar conversation, even when treating of most serious and solid topics,-this always gave great vigour to his pen. These characteristics are especially noticeable in his private correspondence ; and when a complete collection of his letters is published it will take a high, perhaps the highest, place in that branch of literature. The quiet dignity of his presence, concealing such strength, almost fierceness, of will, and the sensitiveness and refinement of his nature, which it was impossible for him to conceal, these made an " atmosphere " in his presence by which no one could remain unaffected. He usually said little, and was true to his own definition of a gentleman as "one who does not willingly give pain." But at times, and sometimes unexpectedly, he would speak his mind plainly and sharply; and to this may be attributed that fear with which those near him usually regarded him. There are many persons, both inside and outside the Church, well qualified to write a life of Cardinal Newman. Among the latter I should name Mr. R. H. Hutton, for whom Newman's career has evidently had a fascination. Among Catholic laymen Mr. T. W. Allies must know the OF CARDINAL NEJV.il!AN. 347 earlier part as well as any one. Of priests, one naturally thinks of Father Coleridge, S.J., and of Father Lockhart, both of whom knew him long and well. But it is only in his own home that the materials would be forthcoming for the work to be thoroughly done. It was understood in my day that the Cardinal had written a full account of the establishment and progress of the Oratory in England, to be published after his death; and this, of course, would of necessity be something of an autobiography. I never saw the MS., but I believe it exists. About 1882 he went through his papers, and destroyed an immense number of letters which he thought ought not to see the light. Pre­ sumably many of these referred to trying episodes in his career as a Catholic, to which he would not wish to call special attention after his cardinalate had sealed his life with the highest approval. The whole truth therefore about these matters will never now be known. But at least two of the community, Father Ignatius Ryder and Father Thomas Pope, are well qualified to edit the papers that remain in the custody of Father William N eville, and to write a faithful account of his Catholic life ; so we may expect with confidence that in due time the general wish for a really adequate biography will be satisfied. For myself, in writing these "Reminiscences," which have extended far beyond what I dreamed of when I first undertook to set down anything at all, it has been my aim to speak with fairness and with the best accuracy my memory can secure. Those who know better will, I trust also with fairness, give me the benefit of their corrections, either publicly or privately. I am aware that I have recorded some incidents which Newman's Catholic friends would have wished left out. Suppression of the disedifying is an essential element in Catholic biography. But I have looked beyond the mere sentiment which ranks as disedify­ ing whatever is unconventional and not a commonplace 348 PEllSONAL llEJILNISCENCE,S in the lives of all good people. In funeral sermons it has been admitted that be was "misunderstood" by Catholics as well as by Protestants ; and yet such misunderstanding seems quite gratuitous and inexplicable if the accounts of his life that have been made public contain all that was worth recording. I am not without hopes that I shall have done something to explain how it was that N ewman had, aa he himself stated in 1875, "more to try and afflict him in various ways as a Catholic than as an Anglican." I have endeavoured, by recording incidents which hardly one but myself could relate, to throw light on his unique personality and his inner life ; and I do not think that be himself, with his contempt for conventionality and cant, would be disposed to quarrel much with what I have done. It must be a source of congratulation to all who knew him and loved him that his death was so rapid, compara­ tively speaking, and so painless. He bad always shown a great fear, I will not say of death, but of dying; and, beyond that, his intense interest in all things human gave him a strong desire, retained to my knowledge until his eighty-third year, to have his life prolonged. Well, it was prolonged beyond the limit which most of us would care to reach ; perhaps he was himself satisfied with its length­ but this I doubt. In any case, he could have desired no happier ending, save that some familiar faces were absent when be passed into the unconscious state. But there was no mental alienation, so common and so distressing where the. past life has been characterized by great intellectual vigour; there was just the painless and gradual extinction of the vital powers ; and then-did the Dream of Gerontius prove true? .ARTHUR w. HUTTON, OF CARDINAL NEWMAN. 34D

APPENDIX.

CARDINAL NEWMAN'S THESES DE FIDE.

1. AN act of Divine faith is the assent of the intellect, certain, although inevidens, given to Divine truth. 2. It is inevidens, because the motiva, or force of the arguments which precede the act, do not by their own power compel the intellect to believe. It is however certain, since he who makes the assent excludes thereby doubt and fear. 3. This statement, though it at first sounds paradoxical, since it appears to imply that the conclusion may be more certain than the premisses on which it rests, is nevertheless to be readily accepted and defended. 4. And that simply is the ground that the assent of faith is certain. For if it wholly depended on a certain logical treatment of natural truths, unquestionably it could not be certain, since the natural light [of reason] does not provide such certitude. 5. Hence it follows that the human motiva which precede faith are not the motivum fidei, nor are they of such a character that faith can be resolved into them ; but they are nothing more than the usual and indispensable condition which paves the way for faith, which moves the will to insist on the assent of faith, and which proposes and applies to the intellect, though without demonstration, the object of faith. 6. Moreover, these human motiva for faith are necessary to make it a prudent act, thus distinguishing it from the mere obstinacy of heretics, and justifying the condemnation of those who refuse to believe. 7. ·wherefore, although the motiva for faith do not by their own power compel the intellect to believe, yet in their proper place, and in their own measure (so to speak), they are true arguments ; and though they do not cover the conclusion, they point in its direction-that is, they render it credible. 8. And this credibility ought to be manifest to all people, even to the simple and uninstructed, so that they may believe. 9. Or, to express the same thing in other words, on these human 1notiva is based a certain moral judgment to the effect that the object of faith is credible ; which judgment however, previously to the prn- 350 LANGUAGE AND ~1E1'RE OP ECCLESIAS1'ICUS.

dent application of the authority of the will, does not exclude doubt and fear. 10. On the other hand, the ·absolute and perfect certitude of Divine faith does not appeal to ratiocination or to human motiva, but simply , to this one fact, that God, the eternal 'l'ruth, has spoken, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. 11. So that, as has already been pointed out, Divine faith is not based upon ratiocination or on human motiva, but depends on the will, which, moved by Divine grace, commands the intellect to yield a firm assent to things which, so far as the mot-iva which go to prove them are con­ cerned, eau claim only credibility, and not certainty. 12. And heroin lies tlte merit of faith, that it is au act of the free will, aided by grace, and not the mere admission of conclusions which the intellect is forbidden by sheer logic to reject.

THE LANGUAGE AND METRE OF EGGLESIASTIGUS.

(THE following review of Professor :Margoliouth's ]!,'~say on Ecde~iu~­ ticus, by Professor 'l'h. Noldeke, of Strassburg, which appeared in the Litem1··isches Centmlblatt o£ July 12, 1890, has been translated, with permission of the author and of the editor of the Litet·a1·isches Cen­ tralblatt.-EDITOR.) THE present Inaugural Lecture must be taken in con­ junction with the article on "The Language and Metre of Ecclesiasticus" in THE ExPOSITOR, 1890, pp. 295-320, 381- 387, in which the author develops and defends against his critics the views expressed by him in it. In both he seeks to show that the original Hebrew text of the Book of Sirach consisted of verses exhibiting a quantitative metre, and that its language approached much more closely to the "rab­ binical" idiom, and in general displayed a later character, than the books of the Old Testament which are commonly supposed to be the latest. Antecedently now it cannot but cause some surprise to_ be told that a North-Semitic dialect possessed an original metre, with definite quantities, such